The local Jewish community is up in arms against the Provincial Minister of Agriculture, Laurent Barre, who has again used the forum of the Legislature to express his anti-Jewish feelings. Mr. Barre is reported to have said, in a debate on government purchases at retail prices, that he preferred to buy at a good price “than to buy at a bargain price from a Jew.”
The Canadian Jewish Congress asked Alexandre Tache, Speaker of the Legislature, “to take such measures as may prevent a recurrence of such shameful behavior.” A telegram to Premier Duplessis said that the expression of anti-Semitic views in a Canadian legislature is “both unfortunate and of great disservice” to the Premier and to those who desire “to live happy, pleasant lives of neighborliness and goodwill.”
The Labor Committee Against Racial Intolerance sent a telegram to Premier Duplessis, stating that Mr. Barre’s remark was unworthy of a member of the government as well as of French-Canadian people generally. It asked that the Premier “take appropriate action which would protect the good name of our people and of our province.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
